Customize like linux mint

I am in process of creating customized version of Ubuntu and create new ISO file to share it with friends. That includes following list of customization. Any advice / help to achieve my goal would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Baseline version: UBUNTU 10.04 LTS for x86 32bits.
1. Change logo and icons of Ubuntu OS from all the possible places
2. Change the content of /etc/lsb-release file
3. Change default language to French across screen/application/packages/softwares. Even for installation too, it should be in French.
4. System default language should be French
5. Openoffice ctl should be french
6. Set the default keyboard layout
7. Set default homepage of firefox and chrome to google.com
8. Set default language
9. Add new themes and backgrounds

Related bugs

Related FAQ:

1. Change logo and icons of Ubuntu OS from all the possible places
- your choice.

2. Change the content of /etc/lsb-release file
- careful with that - you might run into unexpected trouble when packages try to find the lsb release in order to adapt to the version / release.

3. Change default language to French across screen/application/packages/softwares. Even for installation too, it should be in French.
- should be fairly trivial.

4. System default language should be French
- should be fairly trivial.

5. Openoffice ctl should be french
- should also be easy.

6. Set the default keyboard layout
- should be fairly trivial.

7. Set default homepage of firefox and chrome to google.com
- that might take some doing. Do you want this for the live system only or for the system when installed, too? (AFAIK the Ubuntu firefox customization package messes around with that and will possibly overwrite your changes)

8. Set default language
- should be fairly trivial.

9. Add new themes and backgrounds
- as long as they are not selected by default, this should be fairly easy. Themes and backgrounds are again something that is modified by standard Ubuntu packages, so you will need to find & adapt these.

As summary: Localizing Ubuntu is not so difficult - in fact that's one of the primary purposes for the use of UCK - but changing the branding and creating a different desktop look (&feel) will be more difficult.

Some hints for things to look at:
- You need to be familiar with the debian packaging system
- You need to be familiar with the preseeding mechanism, debconf & ubiquity (cf. https://help.ubuntu.com/community/InstallCDCustomization (somewhat outdated, but it hasn't changed that much))
- You need to be able to read/write/modify shell procedures
- You should have a (virtual) machine to test / install / run your generated images on. qemu is ok, VirtualBox is nice.

- careful with that - you might run into unexpected trouble when
packages try to find the lsb release in order to adapt to the version /
release.

3. Change default language to French across
screen/application/packages/softwares. Even for installation too, it
should be in French.

- should be fairly trivial.

4. System default language should be French

- should be fairly trivial.

5. Openoffice ctl should be french

- should also be easy.

6. Set the default keyboard layout

- should be fairly trivial.

7. Set default homepage of firefox and chrome to google.com

- that might take some doing. Do you want this for the live system only
or for the system when installed, too? (AFAIK the Ubuntu firefox
customization package messes around with that and will possibly
overwrite your changes)

8. Set default language

- should be fairly trivial.

9. Add new themes and backgrounds

- as long as they are not selected by default, this should be fairly
easy. Themes and backgrounds are again something that is modified by
standard Ubuntu packages, so you will need to find & adapt these.

As summary: Localizing Ubuntu is not so difficult - in fact that's one

of the primary purposes for the use of UCK - but changing the branding

b. Any advice on how to change the logo and icons of the system?
Not really - keywords to search for would be plymouth/gfxboot (for the loader screen), and all the *-theme-* packages.

c. I have tried the UCK but couldn’t make out how to implement some of
the points. For example, changing /etc/lsb-release file or changing the
gub or the logo or the icons across the system.

In UCK you can start a terminal (shell) in the system being customized - it is one of the questions asked when you run the GUI ("Do you want to customize manually..." - answer that with yes). Within the terminal you can then modify the system to your hearts desire (this is where some shell programming comes in handy ;-). By default the root-file-system-to-be will be in ~/tmp/remaster-root - and (while the terminal is running) you can modify that directory at will, either within the terminal (which essentially *is* the system that you will be running) or from the outside (i.e. copy stuff into that directory).